Los escritos de Jean-Marie Schaeffer destacan entre los de otros filósofos franceses por el hecho de que no solo enfatizan la relevancia del enfoque evolutivo al interior de la reflexión filosófica, generalmente desacreditado por completo en los círculos intelectuales vinculados a la filosofía continental, sino por el hecho de que lo introducen en la investigación estética, lo cual resulta aún menos frecuente entre los filósofos en general. En la argumentación de Schaeffer, dicho enfoque explicita la existencia de un punto (...) de encuentro entre, por un lado, la crítica filosófica al antropocentrismo y la ética animal y, por otro lado, el análisis estético. Según se argumenta en este artículo, a la luz de las reflexiones del filósofo francés se evidencian algunas implicaciones importantes de la teoría de la evolución biológica en la problematización del supuesto de una superioridad moral humana al interior de la estética filosófica. (shrink)

Una de las principales causas de que el visón europeo, Mustela lutreola, esté en peligro de extinción es la industria peletera. Por un lado, durante los siglos XIX y XX, la caza por su piel causó un grave declive en la especie. Por otro lado, a partir de la década de 1920, la peletería fue substituyendo la caza por la cría en cautividad, y Europa se llenó de granjas de visón americano, Neovison vison; los ejemplares fugados de ellas están colonizando (...) el continente y se han convertido en una amenaza para el visón europeo. Actualmente, algunos países comienzan a prohibir estas granjas, que en cambio aumentan en España. El objetivo de este artículo es analizar este caso concreto como un ejemplo de que nuestros gustos estéticos pueden resultar dañinos e incluso letales para otras especies y la naturaleza en general. (shrink)

Tras la publicación de Estromatología, en 2014, y de Orden oculto, en 2021, Ricardo Sánchez Ortiz de Urbina cierra su sistema filosófico, la «estromatología», con Por amor al Arte, en 2024. En el presenta artículo se estudia el encaje que esta última obra tiene en sus escritos anteriores. La estructura de la naturaleza humana se afina ahora más y, frente a ella, el lugar de la Naturaleza y la Eidética (conocimientos científicos) quedan ubicados de manera muy diferente al uso convencional. (...) El ser humano queda definido como Intencionalidad, como un «animal intencional», un animal que posee lenguaje, pero fundado en su dimensión estética. Todo ello supone una revolución en la filosofía, una revolución en la fenomenología y una revolución en el modo de entender las relaciones, y las relaciones de prioridad, entre el arte, la estética, las ciencias naturales, las ciencias humanas y el resto de los conocimientos. (shrink)

This article wants to investigate the logic of mimicry and their communicative function in animal life adopting an aesthetical perspective. The relationship between appearance and not-appearance, between the act of making itself visible and the act of disguising itself, is investigated starting from the morphological thought of the Swiss biologist Adolf Portmann, in a continuous dialogue with great thinkers of past and actual time – Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Hannah Arendt and Roger Caillois – and with the artistic illustrations of (...) the American painter Abbott Thayer, concerned with the laws of color camouflage. This productive relationship among biology, aesthetics and artistic practice allows us to show that the sphere of the skin, far from being "superficial" and meaningless, is the privileged point of view for a true semiotics of the visible. (shrink)

A través del análisis del lenguaje audiovisual y la comprensión del proceso de creación de algunas de las series anime más destacadas de la última década, este artículo pretende establecer las cualidades estéticas y técnicas actuales más representativas de este modelo de animación. Unos aspectos significativos que podrían dar lugar a una nueva etapa en la historia de la animación japonesa, ya que no solo las técnicas de producción o difusión han seguido evolucionando sino también su narrativa y estética (...) han traspasado la frontera de lo establecido, desarrollando un proceso de creación tan eficiente que se ha convertido en un referente para las producciones occidentales. (shrink)

Maybe human aesthetics developed from animal aesthetics. I am not, of course, suggesting that sophisticated aesthetics as practiced by humans already exists among animals. Yet the aesthetic attitude as such might have originated in the animal kingdom. Drawing on this animal resource, human aesthetics might have evolved and, when cultural evolution emerged, it had reached results very different from animal aesthetics. With this perspective in mind, I show that the evolutionary aesthetics, as commonly pursued today, falls (...) prey to serious shortcomings. (shrink)

RESUMEN:La originalidad que define la lectura deleuzeana de las artes es su crítica implícita a toda antropología o psicología del artista y del espectador, y a todo abordaje de la obra dependiente de la tradición hermenéutica, de las teorías del lenguaje y de la semiología estructuralista. El problema de la animalidad y de la vida en general en relación con el arte parece responder, de un modo inédito, al desdibujamiento de las esferas que la estética clásica distinguía como categorías (...) escindidas para el análisis de la obra de arte; el autor, la obra, el espectador. En este artículo proponemos un recorrido por algunos aspectos de las teorías de la individuación y lo viviente en Simondon, Bergson y von Uexküll para comprender su uso y función en la estética deleuzena. PALABRAS CLAVE:DELEUZE, ESTÉTICA, SIMONDON, BERGSON, VON UEXKÜLLABSTRACT:The originality of Deleuze aesthetics is its implicit refuse of any anthropology o psychology of the artist or the spectator, and also a refusal of hermeneutics, language theories and structuralist semiology towards an analysis of the work of art. The problem of animality and life in general in relation to art seems to respond, in an unprecedented way, to the fading of those which classical aesthetics regarded as split topics for the analysis of the work of art, i.e., author, work of art, spectator. This paper points out some relevant aspects of individuation and life theories in Simondon, Bergson and von Uexküll, so as to understand their use and function in Deleuze aesthetics. KEY WORDS:DELEUZE, AESTHETICS, SIMONDON, BERGSON, VON UEXKÜLL. (shrink)

Is language an evolutionarily independent faculty from other cognitive capacities? In recent years two opposing views have clashed: the innatist view, of which linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky is the main exponent, which answers in the affirmative; the constructivist-empiricist one according to which, on the other hand, language is but the ultimate evolution-complication of non-linguistic capabilities already present in non-human animals. This paper presents and comments on the position of the scientist and philosopher Giorgio Prodi (1928-1987) who avoids this contraposition (...) by thematising an original aesthetic area that would be at the origin of both animal and then human cognition as well as properly human language. Unlike the constructivist view, however, for Prodi such an original aesthetic field can only ground language because it is co-extensive with the original space of biosemiosis. Lastly, the theme of co-evolution is analysed, the only evolutionary mechanism capable, according to Prodi, to account for both the similarities and differences of human language compared to the forms of communication of non-human animals and plants. (shrink)

La formación ética enfrenta el reto de ser comprensible para los estudiantes, pero, sobre todo, de formularsedesde las formas de comprender y discutir sus propias vidas, para que les sea relevante. Una de esas formasespecialmente atractiva entre niños y jóvenes es la comunicación audiovisual, cuyo potencial formativo ha sidocomprendido usualmente en términos instrumentales, cuando no negado absolutamente. Este artículo presentauna propuesta fenomenológica para trabajar dialógicamente en el aula la problematización de una ética centradaen el deber, tal como es puesta en (...) escena en dos productos de animación japonesa (“anime”). En primer lugar,discute fenomenológicamente cómo comprender el potencial formativo de la experiencia de ver una narraciónanimada. En segundo lugar, argumenta cómo la reinterpretación fenomenológica del imperativo categóricopuede superar su desconexión de la dimensión afectiva del sujeto ético y sus contextos fácticos de acción paracentrarse en el cuidado de la condición humana de vulnerabilidad. En tercer lugar, muestra cómo las discusionesanteriores son elaboradas en dos “animes” que permiten que los estudiantes se involucren vivencialmente enestas interpelaciones éticas y que los docentes puedan acoger sus vivencias en una experiencia dialógica deaprendizaje comprendida narrativamente. Concluye recapitulando las oportunidades y exigencias planteadasa los docentes desde esta clave de lectura del sentido de las creaciones audiovisuales en la actividad educativa. (shrink)

The article focuses on Leibniz’s theory of dual access to the innate practical truths developed in the _New Essays_, on the background of the reconciliation between egoism and altruism he pursues – since his early writings on natural law – through the categories of disinterested love and charity, and the onto-aesthetic implication between harmony and pleasure as well. After reconstructing the meaning and the functions of the argument on the community of brigands that Leibniz addresses against Locke’s conventionalism, the article (...) dwells on the structure of social instincts in human and non-human animals and emphasises the role of the “prick of conscience”, conceived of as a first, affective and pre-rational step in the construction of otherness. (shrink)

Es, quiza, la coleccion mas abierta que existe en cuestiones de etica, aunque se ha ocupado tambien de antropologia, estetica, ontologia, teoria del conocimiento e historia de la filosofia. El primer titulo que se publico en la coleccion fue la gran Historia de la filosofia y de la ciencia en tres volumenes de Ludovico Geymonat. A este le han seguido obras de A. J. Ayer, A. MacIntyre, Ernst Tugendhat, Antoni Domenech, Anna Estany, Agnes Heller, F. Fernandez Buey, Carlos Paris, Emilio (...) Lledo, Manuel Sacristan, John Rawls o Ludwig Wittgenstein. Victoria Camps ha dirigido, ademas, una gran Historia de la etica, en tres volumenes, en la que han colaborado los mejores especialistas espanoles. Para el autor solo el analisis de la evolucion biologica permite comprender el concepto de cultura como desarrollo y desembocadura de la vida. Es un proceso que culmina en la realidad humana y que la presente obra examina en sus grandes lineas. (shrink)

All of Stanley Cavell's work, whether its topic is Shakespeare's or Beckett's theatre, Hollywood cinema, Caro's sculpture or Derrida's deconstruction, rests on the philosophies of language of Wittgenstein and Austin and on the vision that in these one finds the life of human animals in language and culture. Behind the question "What is art?" Thus, in Cavell, questions such as: How does one enter language? What is speaking on one's own behalf? How is it possible to escape from inexpressiveness? What (...) does it mean to speak for others with whom we consent to associate? What is recognizing others, being recognized by them, or recognizing a community? What responsibility do I have for the way language means? What is consent and dissent? How do you come to have, not just your own voice, but a voice capable of articulating something new, for example, artistically new? How can that voice ever be shared? (shrink)

That non-human animals show genuine aesthetic experiences is (yet?) controversial. On the contrary, it seems that there is no doubt that human animal can do it. In this paper, however, we ask whether Homo sapiens has actually the biological capacity to make a truly aesthetic experience. The starting point for this analysis is the most important characteristic of the human species, the innate faculty of language. If you take into account the relationship between human body/mind and language is not (...) at all obvious that Homo sapiens could really prove a genuine aesthetic experience. On the contrary, such an experience would be biologically available only to non-human animals. (shrink)

Paired masks described as beautiful and grotesque express complementary values in several southern Nigerian art traditions. Beautiful masks represent humans, often women, and serve as metaphors for things associated with civilization and culture. Grotesque masks represent animals or men, and tend to be linked with notions of masculinity and nature. Analysis of masks falling into these categories provides us with a set of formal criteria for this imagery. Mask types that fall into this continuum are used by the Okpella, a (...) northern Edo people living north of Benin City in southern Nigeria: a female character commemorating specific women of status and described as beautiful, a more ambiguous character that serves as the festival herald and messenger of the Dead Fathers described as grotesque, and a third masquerade that combines elements of both the beautiful and grotesque is described as fascinating. Why and how these forms communicate to their Okpella audience is the focus of this paper. It is based on qualitative research on the history and meaning of these masks carried out among the Okpella, survey research on aesthetic preference in which 400 individuals were interviewed, and with a panel study in which 100 participants from the original sample were re-interviewed. Key words: beautiful, grotesque, Africa, okpella, masquerade, aesthetics. Resumen Las máscaras emparejadas descritas como ‘bellas’ y ‘grotescas’ expresan valores complementarios en varias tradiciones artísticas del sur de Nigeria. Las máscaras bellas representan a los humanos, frecuentemente mujeres, y se emplean como metáforas de aspectos asociados con la civilización y la cultura. Las máscaras grotescas representan animales u hombres, y suelen vincularse con nociones de masculinidad y de naturaleza. El análisis de las máscaras que entran en estas dos categorías proporciona un conjunto de criterios formales para comprender este imaginario. El grupo étnico Edo del norte que vive al norte de Ciudad de Benín en el sur de Nigeria, los okpella, usan máscaras de este tipo. Existe un personaje femenino descrito como bello, un personaje más ambiguo descrito como grotesco y un tercero que combina elementos del bello y del grotesco y que se describe como fascinante. En este artículo nos interesamos en qué y cómo comunican estas formas con los okpella. Nuestro trabajo se apoya sobre una investigación cualitativa realizada entre los okpella, una encuesta sobre preferencia estética en la cual se entrevistó a 400 personas y un estudio en el cual se volvió a entrevistar a 100 personas de la muestra anterior. Palabras clave: belleza, grotesco, África, okpella, mascarada, estética. (shrink)

In questo articolo, a partire dal pensiero filosofico di Maurizio Ferraris considerato nelle sue tre linee argomentative principali (ermeneutica, estetica, ontologia), analizzo i presupposti e le implicazioni teoriche del postumano e del pensiero dell’animalità (di matrice continentale) per una metafisica radicalmente realista. La mia tesi è che tutta la produzione di Ferraris, come del resto quella del suo riferimento filosofico principale (che qui individuo in Jacques Derrida), sia descrivibile alla luce dell’animalità come entità teorica privilegiata per dimostrare l’esistenza di un (...) mondo esterno al soggetto umano mettendo in crisi le filosofie antropocentriche senza fare nessun riferimento al piano etico, come avviene nella letteratura tradizionale sul tema, ma rimanendo ancorati a un piano ontologico. (shrink)

Este artículo parte de la perspectiva del materialismo posthumano, una línea de investigación que asume el presente como un contexto postantropocéntrico y postnatural en el que se ha vuelto indispensable volver a considerar las diversas lógicas de existencia que pueblan la Tierra. Es decir, se trata de pensar el espacio post/inhumano que se abre con la interacción, la hibridación y la co-emergencia de todo lo existente en la que los actores humanos están presentes pero no ya en el centro de (...) la acción, sino en una mezcla de agencialidades diversas. En esta oportunidad se presentará una lectura de Las aventuras de la China Iron, de Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, desde una estética materialista posthumana. Por un lado, en la medida en que la narradora es un animal humano, la novela será entendida como una descripción horizontal y no jerárquica del lugar de la “humanidad” en el planeta; y, por el otro, como la exploración de las mutuamente contaminadas potencias de actuar, pensar y sentir de lo existente en general: lo animal, lo vegetal y lo mineral no ya taxonomizados en reinos sino mezclados en el “compost” sin alambrado, ingobernable y fértil que podría ser el “desierto” argentino. De esta forma, en tanto que reescritura del Martín Fierro, texto considerado fundacional de la identidad nacional argentina, la novela de Cabezón Cámara podría ser la fabulación de una “matria” queer y holoéntica que alberga criaturas de múltiples especies y reinos. (shrink)

O presente artigo discute as relações entre animais não-humanos e o sensível. Para tanto, ensaia-se uma compreensão das formas animais e suas aparências expressivas, apoiando-se em ideias e teses dos filósofos franceses Merleau-Ponty e Dominique Lestel formuladas a partir do estudo do zoólogo Adolf Portmann sobre a aparência dos animais, denominado A forma animal. A investigação de Portmann, interessada em apreender fora do registro funcional do biológico o mistério que envolve as formas vivas, assimila uma nova concepção de corpo (...) animal e descobre nele uma qualidade estética de livre expressão resultante do dispêndio das aparências dos viventes não-humanos.Palavras-chave: Vida Sensível; Animalidade; Aparência; Natureza. (shrink)

En este artículo hemos intentado poner de relieve la íntima solidaridad que existe entre la ontología y la estética de Gilles Deleuze. La conexión entre ambas disciplinas es tan estrecha que resulta materialmente imposible aproximarse a la teoría del arte de Deleuze sin tener una clara comprensión de las nociones nucleares que integran su pensamiento. Los conceptos de Deleuze no son estáticos, sino móviles, lo que les permite variar de fisonomía a medida que se desplaza el horizonte de la (...) investigación. Este es el motivo de que, en el proyecto del filósofo francés, la obra de arte reciba un tratamiento conceptual que es tributario de tesis elaboradas en el ámbito de la más rigurosa especulación ontológica. Deleuze concibe el arte como un antídoto contra las pasiones tristes de las que hablaba Spinoza, un revulsivo contra una Sociedad que asfixia la creatividad con sus clichés, un «paisaje» nuevo que solo podemos habitar a condición de despojarnos de nuestra pretendida identidad. (shrink)

Ricœur propone que la clínica médica y la fenomenología se entrecruzan en la semiología de los signos del sufrir. Ello solo se manifiesta si se alcanza alguna las características fundamentales del sufrimiento, que habrá que determinar. Este camino permite descifrar el lugar del sufrimiento en la ciudad por medio de su vínculo con una estética de lo sublime. Siendo el sufrimiento una experiencia, la consideración de su relación con una teoría de lo sublime no solo es legítima, sino ineludible. (...) Eso obliga a entenderlo como algo más que un hecho individual y a definirlo como de interés público. Nos detendremos en algunos escalones del sufrimiento, como son: el sufrimiento prolongado en un contexto médico, el sufrimiento animal, la tortura y el suicidio, cuando su sentido es conmover a la ciudad. Lo público puede recomponerse si se admite el sufrimiento como uno de sus intereses. (shrink)

La oveja (Ovis aries) es el primer animal domesticado para consumo en un hito histórico que marca el inicio de la sedentarización de las comunidades humanas al comienzo del Neolítico. Durante milenios, fueron semejantes al muflón asiático (Ovis orientalis), su ancestro salvaje. Las razas primitivas supervivientes en el norte de Europa son oscuras, mudan el pelo estacionalmente, tienen cuernos en ambos sexos y apenas producen lana. Los ancestros de las modernas surgieron hace unos 3.500 años. Se seleccionaron para producir (...) lana blanca, que crece indefinidamente y se colecta anualmente. Este proceso coincide con la invención de las tijeras de esquilar y con el descubrimiento de tintes como la púrpura. Solo la lana blanca puede teñirse de cualquier color, permitiendo trasladar al tejido las mismas señales que quizá antes nos pintábamos con ocre sobre el cuerpo. La oveja, un herbívoro social muy manejable, sumaba al suministro de alimento el de una fibra abrigada y modificable en su color distintiva de quienes la visten. Un lienzo en blanco donde trasponer las expresiones estéticas antes restringidas al cuerpo, al arte rupestre y al mobiliar. De ahí que diversas mitologías contemplen una relación simbólica especial con ellas. La revolución estética propiciada por las ovejas blancas zozobra en el siglo XX con la aparición de nuevas fibras y el abaratamiento de otras. Hoy, los arquetípicos y blancos rebaños característicos de la iconografía occidental tienden a una coloración mixta al devaluarse la lana. Otras especies domésticas con fibras que solo recientemente se han apreciado comercialmente, como las cabras de angora (Capra hircus) o las llamas (Lama glama), siguen un proceso idéntico al emprendido con las ovejas hace milenios para tornarse blancas. Presentamos las implicaciones estéticas que han estimulado la selección artificial de ovejas con lanas blancas desde un punto de vista transdisciplinar. Siguiendo la corriente bioevolutiva, que entiende nuestra conducta estética y sus manifestaciones como parte de nuestra etología, veremos cómo ese largo proceso estuvo incentivado por nuestro deseo de teñir los tejidos para expresar un fenotipo extendido creando una nueva señal social. Esa nueva señalización, operante en el plano de la selección sexual, se va complicando al desarrollarse nuestras capacidades simbólicas y tecnológicas, siendo sintomática del entorno causal en el que se produce. (shrink)

¿Cómo se forma un sujeto político? En la herencia más antigua de la interrogación filosófica esta pregunta busca recuperar una actitud de asombro suscitada por prácticas diversas de relación consigo y con los otros en las que personas comunes y corrientes ponen en cuestión experiencias sedimentadas sobre el cuerpo y el género, así como fronteras establecidas entre lo natural y lo artificial, lo humano y lo animal, lo común y lo propio. Los artículos aquí reunidos apuntan a mostrar que (...) para pensar estas formas de agencia política es preciso atender a una dimensión amplia de la estética que se refiere al modo en que la materialidad sensorial de la experiencia compartida se ha conformado históricamente y a cómo esta, dada su contingencia, puede reconfigurarse desde ciertas prácticas cotidianas: prácticas de elaboración de sí y de organización colectiva que crean otros escenarios y otras maneras de aparición de los cuerpos, y con esto estrategias de confrontación y antagonismo que atraviesan y afectan lo social. Así, ¿Cómo se forma un sujeto político? es un esfuerzo colectivo de franca resistencia contra la estrechez desde el cual se nos tiende a hacer pensar la política: bien sea desde una política consensual liberal que acaba por neutralizar las diferencias más intratables de nuestra pluralidad, bien sea desde el realismo de una política conflictual y guerrera que funciona desde la polaridad amigo-enemigo. El lector podrá explorar y profundizar, desde otro ángulo, las apuestas epistemológicas, éticas y políticas que resuenan en estas prácticas artísticas y de acción colectiva que nos enseñan hoy, más allá de los paradigmas del "ciudadano" o del "actor racional", cómo se hace un sujeto político. (shrink)

Interpretando a Nietzsche, podríamos afirmar que la embriaguez dionisíaca le posibilita al humano dirigirse afectivamente hacia lo externo, borrando incluso y paradójicamente ese límite que determinaría dónde empieza su ser y dónde aquello a lo que su ser es empujado. Trías recoge esta determinación en un concepto clave de su filosofía al denominarnos “ser del límite”. En ambos filósofos somos radicalmente pasión creadora; somos un animal límite y caótico, sufriente por queriente, y potencialmente feliz por el mismo motivo. Está (...) en nuestras manos investigar, tras el reconocimiento de esta condición estética, sensible e insalvable de lo humano, cómo vivir. (shrink)

The question of the trait that would distinguish human beings from the rest of the animals has kept humanity awake for centuries. Their ability to express themselves through words, their use of reason, their self-awareness of their finiteness or their capacity to produce and appreciate the art have been some of the faculties that, over the centuries, have come to give humanity a justification for its position in the world. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence, many of these attributes came (...) to be questioned thanks to the ability of non-biological entities to produce, among other performances, artistic and literary works. In this article we will revisit some of the topics that have allowed us to delineate the limits of what is human and, in the light of the latest technological advances, to question the link that humanity, technology and artistic creation have with each other today. (shrink)

Atas do III Colóquio Internacional de Metafísica. [ISBN 978-85-7273-730-2]. Sumário: 1. Prazer, desejo e amor-paixão no texto de Lucrécio, por Antonio Júlio Garcia Freire; 2. Anaximandro: física, metafísica e direito, por Celso Martins Azar Filho; 3. Carta a Guimarães Rosa, por Cícero Cunha Bezerra; 4. Ante ens, non ens: La primacía de La negación em El neoplatonismo medievel, por Claudia D’Amico; 5. Metafísica e neoplatonismo, por David G. Santos; 6. Movimento e tempo no pensamento de Epicuro, por Everton da Silva (...) Rocha; 7. Críticas e elogios de Nietzche a Sócrates, por Fernanda Bulhões; 8. Sobre a Metafísica ou a respeito do jejum, por Gilvan Fogel; 9. A origem estética da ontologia hermenêutica de Luigi Pareyson, por Íris Fátima da Silva; 10. A Natureza da filosofia de Hume, por Jaimir Conte; 11. Logique ET métaphysique, por Jean-Baptiste Jainet; 12. Blaise Pascal: da recusa da metafísica da raison à metafísica do « estudo do homem », por João Emiliano Fotaleza de Aquino; 13. O niilismo no prólogo de Assim Falou Zaratustra. Por José Elielton de Sousa; 14. Presencia;Ausência: de Plotino a Procolo, por José Maria Zamora; 15. A natureza do Eros platônico, por Jovelina Maria Ramos de Souza; 16. Breve comentário acerca da origem da Gelassenheit de Heidegger a partir da mística de mestre Eckkart, por Luiz Fernando Fontes-Teixeira; 17. Humanismo e domesticação em Regras para o parque humano, por Luiz Roberto Alves dos Santos; 18. Contra a teoria de dois mundos na filosofia de Platão (República V 476e-478e), por Marcelo Pimenta Marques; 19. Sensações, impressões, projeções: as afecções do pensamento, por Markus Figueira da Silva; 20. Contribuições à história de uma metáfora: Heidegger e Nicolau de Cusa, por Oscar Federico Bauchwitz; 21. Uma impossibilidade ontológica em Schopenhauer, por Paulo César Oliveira Vasconcelos; 22. Ser e fenômeno: a Fenomenologia como teoria estética da ciência, por Pedro Paulo Coroa; 23. Para que serve a Metafísica de Aristóteles? O exemplo do movimento animal, por Pierre-marie Morel; 24. Contribuições para uma ontologia digital, por Rafael Capurro; 25. O que é o fim da metafísica, por Rodrigo Ribeiro Alves Neto; 26. A Physis na conformação do logos: linguagem e pensamento no corpus epicúreo, por Rodrigo Vidal do Nascimento; 27. O acontecimento de mundo na era da informação, por Soraya Guimarães da Silva; 28. Apofaticismo e abstração em Mark Rothko, por Vanessa Alves de Lacerda Santos. -/- . (shrink)

The aim of this article is to literally explore the declinations of the status of the “monstruous thing”, investigating if and when monsters are abnormal phenomena, not of nature but of culture. Which features, of both expression and content, must a non-living artificial subject present in order to be perceived and judged as a “monster”? In the West, the image of the monster is traditionally associated with an abominable creature belonging to the universe of nature whose touchstone is a standard (...) unit of measurement associated with a human or animal body. Here, we are interested in seeing what happens when these value judgments about monsters are applied to non-organic entities. Our case study of the large cruise ships, starting with ocean liners and moving toward the modern behemoths that now enter our historic cities, discloses a new semiosis of monstrosity caused by the war of movement produced by globalization. (shrink)

What is the origin and meaning of our aesthetic sense? Is it genetically encoded or is it culturally inherited? The aim of the essay is to answer to such issues by defining the emergent and meta-functional character of the aesthetic attitude. First, I propose to include the faculty of desire in the free play of the cognitive faculties at the center of Kant’s Critique of Judgment. The following step is given by a brief analysis of Darwin’s controversial remarks on the (...) pre-human birth of aesthetics and its relationship with sexual selection (§§ 1-2). The point of discontinuity between a mere animal aesthetic sense and a proto-human one is then found to become indeterminate of desire in the correlative diversification of aesthetic attractors (§§ 3-4). Successively, I deal with the supervenience character of the aesthetic and its anticipatory value. After a short genealogy of the notion of supervenience, I then develop its affinity with that of epigenesis (§§ 5-6). Afterwhich follows a review of two contemporary evolutionary perspectives on aesthetics: T. Deacon’s essay on the “aesthetic faculty” and J. Tooby and L. Cosmides thesis on the evolutionary meaning of the aesthetic-fictional activities (§§ 7-8). Conclusively, the epigenesis of an aesthetic mind is considered as the unity between the breath of aísthesis and the breath of linguistic sign (§§ 9-10). (shrink)

The concept features as a vital element in architectural protocol and its vocabulary. If architecture and philosophy are defined as creation of concepts, then they are the terra nullius shared by both disciplines. By distinguishing the architectural concept from its philosophical counterpart, this paper analyzes the former as an entity that animates and directs a project as the documental prefiguration of an architectural object. In a more radical move, we consider architecture itself as a concept, that is, what makes architecture (...) what it is and what this discipline can become tomorrow. In addition to decisively participating in the process of generating an object yet to be constructed (the fetus of a building), on a correlative level, the concept has an essential role in theoretical self-thematization of architecture and guards the future of the architectural profession as an autonomous intellectual discipline. (shrink)

Since their first appearance in the late 18th century (Herder, Novalis), and particularly during the golden age between the late 19th and the early 20th century (Vischer, Lipps), the theories of empathy (Einfühlung) have frequently interpreted the ancient issue of the animation of the inanimate on the basis of a hydraulic model of communicating vases: the human subject fills the void object with her/his feelings. The unsustainable psychologistic subjectivism underpinned by such model was radically criticized both by Gestalt theorists and (...) phenomenologists, who rejected the idea of emotional projection and claimed the expressivity peculiar to any entity, both human and non-human. Nevertheless, the notion of empathy is not completely confuted by such criticism, for it does not completely coincide with the hydraulic model. In my paper I will try to show the possibility of a non-subjectivistic version of the Einfühlung referring to the analogical characterology developed in the circle of Lipps’ school (Pfänder, Geiger, Klages). (shrink)

This essay explores the concept of responsibility with respect to today’s ecological and pandemic crisis. A fundamental category is identified in the ‘strategic repentance’, i.e. the ability to reconsider previous decisions taken following environmental feedback resulting from one’s activities. The model of this careful and circumspect behavior can be traced back on the one hand to the animal kingdom, on the other hand to the artistic domain. Thus, the bat and Michelangelo the sculptor become masters of a new action (...) scheme, which is based on feedback rings and on in-progress revision of previously adopted strategies. (shrink)

The paper discusses Maurizio Ferraris’ Documentalità by raising two objections. The first objection concerns Ferraris’ view that, in the case of all natural entities, there cannot be differences in the way a normal adult, a little child and an animal perceive them. It is claimed that this is not true for objects such as the sun that we (differently from little children and animals) cannot help perceiving as a gigantic hot celestial body. The second objection concerns the thesis that (...) all social objects presuppose a written act. In this case the claim is that it is unclear which philosophy of mind can support such a view. (shrink)

Going beyond the creolisation theories of Brathwaite and Glissant, I attempt to develop ideas concerning the gendering of creolisation, and a historicising of affects within it. Addressing affects as ‘physiological things’ contextualised in the history of the Caribbean slave plantation, I seek, importantly, to delineate a trajectory and development of a specific Creole history in relation to affects. Brathwaite's proposition that ‘the most significant (and lasting) inter-cultural creolisation took place’ within the ‘intimate’ space of ‘sexual relations’ is key to my (...) argument. In the light of this, I consider how Creole cultural knowledge about affect—as the primary motivational system inclusive of fear, anger, outrage and so on — might be identified, and what constitutes such Creole knowledge within which affect might be embedded. How might Glissant's relationality and Creole literary texts add to this knowledge? I focus primarily on three texts: Clarke's The Polished Hoe, Collins’ The Colour of Forgetting and Morejón's ‘Amo a mi amo’/‘l Love My Master’. Each text on which I draw is selected for its intersectional representation of gender relations, ‘knowledge about sexual difference’ and its representation of Creole subjectivities within the context problematised here as the ‘demonic ground’. Moreover, as auto-theorising texts, they represent both narrative and meta-narrative of a creolising of affects in and against the economy of the slave plantation. Each represents also a stage or aspect of the development of subjectivities and an affective community that inform this intervention concerned with theorising against consolidated, universalising and Eurocentric conceptualisations of affect. In the process, I attempt to offer a differentiated cartography and literary archaeology of affect. (shrink)

In spite of the great number of publications, contemporary evolutionary aesthetics seems to have reached deadlock, for the lack of a real epistemological reflection on the theoretical nucleus of its own experimental investigations. Starting from an introduction to the current debate, the essay aims to indicate the basic points of a theoretical model able to face speculative risks and methodological complexities of contemporary evolutionary aesthetics. In this very perspective is placed the analysis of Darwin’s sexual paradigm, and the hypothesis of (...) partially revising it in order to extend the notion of aesthetics as an expressive and intrinsically motivated dimension of animal cognition. (shrink)

This article, drawing on selected feminist magazines of the 1980s, particularly Feminist Arts News (FAN) and GEN, offers a textual ‘braiding’ of narratives to re-present a history of Black British feminism. I attempt to chart a history of Black British feminist inheritance while proposing the politics of (other)mothering as a politics of potential, pluralistic and democratic community building, where Black thought and everyday living carry a primary and participant role. The personal—mothering our children—is the political, affording a nurturing of alterity (...) through a politics of care that is fundamentally antiracist and antisexist. I attempt to show how Black feminist thought can significantly contribute to democracy in the present and how Black British history and thought, as fundamentally antiracist and anticolonial, can generate a reinvention much needed in the present of a shared British history. I argue for feminist intervention premised upon a politics of care, addressing through activist mothering the urgency of Black absence from prestigious institutions. Such debilitating absence in Britain inhibits the development of scholarship, distorts feminist history and seriously concerns potential Black feminists. From diverse texts, I develop a genealogical narrative supplemented through memory work. This ‘gathering and re-using’ privileges Black women's theorising as a crucial component of the methodological metissage, which includes auto-theorising to develop ideas of resemblance in relation to Black British feminism and feminist kinship. The resultant ‘braiding’, I suggest after Lionnet, questions the absence of intersubjective spaces for reflection on Black British feminist praxis, indicating a direction for British feminists of all complexions. Attentive to the 1980s as historical context while invoking the maternal, I consider what is required to engage generationally, counterwrite the academy and pursue a dynamic process of transformation within a transnational feminism that challenges Black British absence from academic knowledge production, while nurturing its presence. (shrink)

Jean Painlevé’s films blend aesthetic concerns and scientific realism operating a micro-turn within the broader cinematographic turn that occurred in the sciences in the 20th century. By engaging with his films on the octopus, an animal studied to illuminate human consciousness and firmly grounded in the popular imagina-tion through literature and the arts, this article demonstrates how Painlevé em-braced a politics of life organised around the concept of a missed encounter be-tween life forms.

Drawing — and I speak here of outline drawing that uses just lines: monochrome, with no particular concern for what fills the spaces left between the lines — is a human artifact as ancient as it is mysterious. Even a simple enumeration of facts about it is bound to arouse interest and theoretical curiosity. Here are a few. Drawings are just as old as the oldest human representations known to us. The painted animals in the caves of Lascaux and Chauvet (...) are surrounded by thick lines that have a... (shrink)

Essere è resistere, secondo Maurizio Ferraris: e di resistenza, effettivamente, l’uomo Ferraris ne ha mostrata parecchia. Dal 1978, anno del suo primo articolo pubblicato in francese su Littérature, la sua produzione si è fatta sterminata e si fatica, senza retorica alcuna, a pensare che un uomo di sessant’anni possa davvero aver scritto così tanto, su così tanti argomenti e con tanta continuità. Ma, d’altronde, per Maurizio la scrittura è un’attività filosofica fondamentale – tanto come prat...

The end of human history is an event that has been foreseen or announced by both messianics and dialecticians. But who is the protagonist of that history that is coming—or has come—to a close? What is man? How did he come on the scene? And how has he maintained his privileged place as the master of, or first among, the animals? In The Open, contemporary Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben considers the ways in which the “human” has been thought of as (...) either a distinct and superior type of animal, or a kind of being that is essentially different from animal altogether. In an argument that ranges from ancient Greek, Christian, and Jewish texts to twentieth-century thinkers such as Heidegger, Benjamin, and Kojève, Agamben examines the ways in which the distinction between man and animal has been manufactured by the logical presuppositions of Western thought, and he investigates the profound implications that the man/animal distinction has had for disciplines as seemingly disparate as philosophy, law, anthropology, medicine, and politics. (shrink)

In debates about animal sentience, the precautionary principle is often invoked. The idea is that when the evidence of sentience is inconclusive, we should “give the animal the benefit of the doubt” or “err on the side of caution” in formulating animal protection legislation. Yet there remains confusion as to whether it is appropriate to apply the precautionary principle in this context, and, if so, what “applying the precautionary principle” means in practice regarding the burden of proof (...) for animal sentience. Here I construct a version of the precautionary principle tailored to the question of animal sentience together with a practical framework for implementing it. I explain and defend the key features of this framework, argue that it is well-aligned with current practice in animal welfare science, and consider and reject a number of influential counterarguments to the use of precautionary reasoning in this area. (shrink)

Offers a forthright approach to the many disquieting questions surrounding the emotional debate over animal rights. This book includes a chapter on animal agriculture, and additional discussions of animal law, companion animal issues, genetic engineering, animal pain, animal research, and other topics.